Japan’s army of hostesses break shackles of exploitation by forming a union

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Japan’s hostesses, the army of women who work on the fringes of the country’s sex industry, have come out of the shadows to smash the shackles of exploitation by forming a union.

With only ten members at present, but with the potential to attract tens of thousands, the hostess union opened its telephone lines this month in the quest for recruits. It is not the advances of clients that are to blame for this new sisterhood. The abuse, they say, comes from their employers.

Once a critical mass of membership is attained the union could hold the salarymen of Japan